April is a month of new beginnings, a month in bloom.
This month, I watch the start of Spring manifest in green sprouts all around me for the first time as a mother.
Knowing all too well the mental load that clutters the brain behind the eyes that witnesses such beautiful seasonal change, I keep a special place in my heart for the women who have an extra mental load no one sees.
Sober moms.
They are fighting a battle behind the scenes.
Alcohol is targeting mothers like never before.
We've accepted it in our culture because they replaced the actual rights they need to grant mothers in society with a bottle of pinot and called it “self-care,” knowing mothers often struggle with caring for themselves.
It's a small way to hide big problems
that causes so many more problems.
It’s a way to not give mothers the time, effort, space, visibility, care and treatment they deserve
but brainwash them into thinking they are giving that to themselves, one glass at a time.
Rather than valuing a mother’s importance in the home and allowing her to stay home,
we devalue mothers by telling them it’s better if they work to pay for someone else to raise their children
and call it day care, but they don’t care.
They answered our very reasonable wishes with unreasonable amounts of toxicity
and have us believe it's healthy "decompressing".
They say moms should take time for themselves during the week,
but marked every single line in our calendars with Winesday, and our clocks with happy hours.
They call it feminism. A wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Because if we forget how much we need to drink to survive motherhood,
they made coasters, aprons, glasses and more items with reminders to decorate our kitchen – the room we surely will be in.
They have us believe the very substance that had us assaulted, amnesiac, regretful, sick, ashamed and feeling like dying the next morning in our coming to womanhood
is what we need to survive the evenings of motherhood.
And when it's not marketed for us,
it's marketed for everyone else
and when it's not on ads or signs, in store windows or songs we sing,
it's in the hands of the people we mother around and visit every Thanks Giving.
Sober moms have a separate mental load many will never see
because if we keep it hidden
we keep the illusion going.
But every single mother who chooses to do motherhood sober
reminds us that we can do it all
without needing to poison ourselves through.
The only way out is through.
And there you are, pushing through
for your kids, your family, your inner child, for you.
And all of us.
Never forget that sober mom capes
are extra sparkly to be seen from space
because when we look back from above and marvel at the work we did for the collective motherhood
we can clearly see our path, like diamonds we can trace
from one generation to another,
before and after,
that we healed by choosing to be sober.